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What Do I Cloudify?

Cloud computing is no longer only a buzzword. Enterprises

across the domain are talking about it; in other words, it has

moved from “what it is” to “how can it help” the enterprise.

Cloud computing is a paradigm shift for IT services and is not

just a set of new technology and tools but is the change in

the way we respond to the business problems today using

technology.

This paper discusses cloud service delivery models and how

to choose your preferred delivery platform.

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Sachin Sancheti

Cloud Architect, Aditi Technologies

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Appraising Cloud and

its Service Delivery Models

Post the recent downturn, IT resource optimization is the key driver for most

of business transformation initiatives across all domains. Enterprises face some

specific challenges, namely, increased need for cost reductions, global model

for information exchange with partners, field agents and on-the-move

managers. These are challenges that result in the need for additional

infrastructure and IT.

Classification of the applications in an enterprise yields some standard support

function applications, a few short lived applications and periodic access

applications which could be the ideal candidates for IT optimization. Apart

from running only the “lights on” applications in this competitive environment,

enterprises need to be more agile and innovative to raise operational

efficiency, reduced management efforts, fast time to market and realize

innovative ideas to improve competitive edge.

Cloud computing is an innovative service delivery model with benefits of pay

as you go, instant and elastic infrastructure which is readily available and

reliable. According to the recent surveys and research it is established that

cloud computing can help enterprises to reap benefits and build value for

smooth operations, cost saving and innovative execution etc.

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Cloud computing is no longer only a buzzword. Enterprises across the domain

are talking about it; in other words, it has moved from “what it is” to “how can

it help” the enterprise. Cloud computing is a paradigm shift for IT services and

is not just a set of new technology and tools but is the change in the way we

respond to the business problems today using technology.

Cloud computing offers many benefits and that is the reason why enterprises

are curious and excited about the cloud computing. Following are few key

benefits that cloud computing offers:

Elastic Resource Capacity: Ability to re-provision the technologic

infrastructure resources on demand rapidly and inexpensively

Reduced Cost: Reduced Capital cost due to utility pricing based on usage.

Pay as you go model provides transactional pricing

Improved Reliability: Multiple redundant sites with automatic replication

of data improves reliability

Better Scalability: On demand provisioning of resources to manage the

peak load and quickly scale infrastructure

Global Reach: Readily available and accessible from anywhere. Regional

data centers provided by cloud makes it available near to the target

audience

However, any technology transformation is not easy for organizations to

adopt and there are pain points associated with it as the change does not

happen overnight. It requires assessment, planning, validation, selling and

convincing the stake holders for the change. The change adoption has to be

incremental and stepwise. The change has to be evaluated with due diligence

in specific needs of enterprise drivers and the application characteristic.

What are the layers of

Architecture? Case of Cloud

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Cloud computing brings all together a new set of possibilities to be leveraged

from the service delivery point of view. At high level below are the major

delivery models available for cloud computing adoption for any enterprise.

Image Reference: Microsoft Windows Azure Training Kit

The image clearly depicts what does cloud service provider manages and what

needs to be managed by the subscribers. This also explains the kind of control

subscribers have on their applications, data and infrastructure in each of the

cloud service delivery model. A prominent observation can be drown from

above image is “As you move from IaaS towards SaaS the control reduces and

simplicity increases”.

What are the layers of

Architecture? Cloud Service Delivery

Models: IaaS, PaaS & SaaS

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Let us briefly expand each of the cloud service delivery models.

SaaS - Software as a service: This deployment model provides a finished

application or solution as a service. It is a generalized application with

support for limited customization offered through cloud. Since it is

generalized solution, it has limitations for enterprises to map their isolated

customized implementation and heterogeneous data stores to avail this

solution. SaaS might turn out a good offering for smaller organizations to

address their limited business process needs. For bigger enterprises, a rich

set of functionalities (SaaS) with easy configuration to be able fit into their

context, would appeal.

PaaS - Platform as a service: This deployment model provides building

blocks to develop and assemble a customized solution in the cloud. As it has

to be built by the end users it provides a lot of flexibility in terms of

implementation but asks for initial investment for building the solution over

the cloud. This model is very flexible and capable of addressing all the needs

of custom processes, custom databases and other peculiar requirements of

the enterprises. PaaS provides high class services like operating system,

database storage, reporting framework, caching, integration frameworks etc.

which makes the application development a fast paced reliable matter.

Large enterprises would find this model very useful to overcome the

challenges like procurements, lying investment, un-optimized usage etc.

faced by their existing on premise applications.

IaaS – Infrastructure as a service: In this model vendors provide hardware

infrastructure as a service and customers need to deploy their software

starting from the operating system to the end application. This model

addresses only the need of delivering a dynamic hardware infrastructure.

Using this model enterprise will have to address the need of software

licensing and deployment by themselves which limits the benefits of cloud

computing platform. Since, it provides infrastructure on demand it makes

appealing to deploy line of business applications deployed on IaaS without

getting locked to any specific vendors as the case in SaaS and PaaS.

Enterprises who are ready to invest in managing their infrastructure, software

licensing etc. might find IaaS appealing because only the physical location of

the hardware changes rest everything else mostly remains same with the

benefit of dynamic infrastructure.

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Enterprises can choose to select their cloud platform of choice based on the

following criteria’s described in the table below, driven by factors which makes

business sense in their respective domains.

Figure: Cloud Delivery Model – Feature Characteristics

What are the layers of

Architecture? How to Choose your Preferred Cloud Platform

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Above model suggests the characteristics of each deployment model and the

feature sets offered by each one of them. Interesting continuum to be looked

at is as you go from IaaS towards SaaS the control decreases and the simplicity

increases and these could play the main drivers in decision making for finding

out X in “X as a Service” choice of cloud service delivery.

We can go on adding the criteria with specific weightage system and evaluate

these service delivery channels for the right fitment of application and

enterprise drivers.

We would like to provide few scenarios with choice of cloud service delivery

model driven by specific characteristics or feature required in for the

application.

Generic and common support functionality without being need to have

complete control on the application with maximum simplicity and reduced

management cost, e.g. Email Service – SaaS

Specific business functionalities and processes with reduced management

efforts and high time to market. To achieve this, the PaaS building blocks

would make it a better choice. E.g. procurement process, Line of Business

applications

Specific business functions with high need of control over application and data

even at the price of higher management efforts and slightly more time to

market

Enterprises are moving into the next stage of cloud adoption, rather than just a

feel good factor cloud has moved to a serious business proposition slab. Here

we tried to put a standard case for cloud with differentiating the three cloud

service delivery models with their characteristics and scenarios to keep the

decision of cloud adoption moving forward.

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